A reboot of Marathon...
...should clearly have been called Snickers.
Bungie's Marathon series was ground-breaking. Not the first ever first-person shooter, not even on the Mac, but certainly the game that showed there's more to the genre than the 'kill monsters, open doors' gameplay of Doom and its followers. Marathon was all as much about the story, told not through cut-scenes and dialogue - …
The game was incredibly good fun, back in the day. and the way the story was handed out to you piece by piece created the atmosphere and made it so enjoyable.
i tried Aleph One a few years ago, and it was okay.
Shall be interesting to give it another try now that it's reached a full version number, to see how it compares in these current days of gaming.
"Bungie's Marathon series was ground-breaking. Not the first ever first-person shooter, not even on the Mac, but certainly the game that showed there's more to the genre than the 'kill monsters, open doors' gameplay of Doom and its followers."
So what you're saying is that it's Marathon's fault the FPS genre devolved from the exciting, easy to pick up, precise, endlessly replayable style of Doom to the dull-as-ditchwater, heavily scripted, poorly-controlled squad-based pseudo-tactics fest that it is today?
Good to know!
I think that Pathways into Darkness was even more revolutionary, although it wasn't 'true' 3D (the floors were all flat). Not only did it have a great plot (expounded via conversations with dead people), but it also had sophisticated inventory management that was almost similar to a text adventure.
I always like it when game companies open source old games. I remember fondly when they open sourced one of my childhood faves (warzone2100) and seen it mature quite nicely (If you're interesting in an open-source RTS, give http://www.wz2100.net/ a look).
I have to say I've never played marathon (back then I was far more into RTS games) but it definitely looks interesting, so will install it on my PC when I get a spare moment. Thanks a lot for the article!
Dark and moody corridors, creepy music, stereo sound, dual firing modes, look up/down view, friendly NPCs, swimming/vacuum areas, plus an amazing story. And then there's the multiplayer...
Marathon remains a classic for me and even though I haven't booted up Aleph One for a year since I completed the excellent Rubicon add-on pack, it's good to see the improvements there. Might have to spend some of tonight playing this little lot. Good article
So, Marathon.
Greatest ever FPS? Well, the only people that still remember it are decent-game-starved Mac users. Yes, it was a welcome departure at the time from kill-imp-get-key-open-door but it's a bit po-faced and the weapons are crap.
First ever FPS? You'll need to look back to MazeWar in the 1970s for that. Multiplayer and everything.